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  He couldn’t recall how many times guys had crashed in there or how many times he’d walked back to find his artists drawing up this sketch or that. His eyes roved the room and landed on an open sketchbook. The image of a gypsy stared back at him. It was probably Mike’s. The guy was incredible. The best artist Kian had ever seen. There wasn’t a medium the guy couldn’t make look amazing. That included things that normally didn’t count as art like clothing, sculpture, hell, the guy even made cleaning his work station look like an artistic process.

  Kian reached in the cupboard above the sink and produced a packet of juice crystals. He added a hefty amount to the cup in his hand and watched the water change color. It turned a dark purple. The stuff was so strong he could probably stick a fork upright in it.

  He entered his private room much more hopeful than when he’d left. He handed off the glass to his client, who actually did look a little better after he drank it.

  “Let me guess. You didn’t eat before this.” The guy slowly shook his head as Kian washed his hands and grabbed a fresh set of gloves. “That’s a mistake. Doesn’t our website say come with a full belly?”

  “Yah, I tried. I just couldn’t. I was too nervous.”

  “You said this wasn’t your first tattoo.”

  Kian grabbed up his machine, dipped it in black ink and resumed the outline. The guy’s skin was raised and puffy, red around the edges, but no more than normal. He hoped he’d able to at least finish the outline before the guy quit on him. He actually liked the design. A ship with a kraken breaking it apart, smoke and fire everywhere. It was a bad ass, traditional design. He’d actually been a little proud of his client for asking for it.

  Even if he couldn’t sit through it and had to break up the sitting. Kian didn’t care. He was paid for his time in advance and he’d keep the guy’s money. There was no carrying it forward.

  He wished he could be nicer, but life had taught him that being nice was no way to run a business. Or it was, if you wanted to get walked all over.

  “It isn’t, but the first one I got was only half hour long.”

  Ten to one it was a butterfly. Oh wait, wrong client. “Just hang in there. We’ll get the outline done and it’s all smooth sailing after that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yah.” Kian lied convincingly. He always was a good liar, able to talk people down. That’s what made him a good cop. Or at least, it had.

  He sighed, thinking he was off the hook with annoying complaints, at least for the next hour or so before the guy got all shaky and edgy again under his hands.

  He was wrong.

  A light knock at the door brought his head around. His hand paused, the machine hovering an inch above his client’s arm.

  Savannah Fiacco stood in the doorway. Kian could have groaned. He wished he could have told her to leave, to stop distracting him, to go bother Mike, to do a thousand other things, but he knew he damn well couldn’t. He had to keep his mouth shut when it came to her, annoying, spoiled, infatuated brat that she was, or her father was sure to hear about it and that meant trouble and trouble to him just wasn’t worth it, at least not where his investments were concerned.

  “Kian,” Savannah crooned in a sugary, obnoxious tone. Pink, lacquered plump lips turned up in a wide smile revealing teeth that were just a little too straight and a little too white. Like everything else about Savannah, that smile was almost completely fake, manufactured through thousands of her father’s dollars. She batted long, fake eyelashes. Her eyes were brown, but she had in green contacts. Her blonde hair hung to her waist, but it was straight out of a bottle. The roots were jet black. “I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Where’s Mike?” Kian asked roughly. He’d warned the guy against Savannah, but Mike couldn’t help himself. She’d come to the shop six months ago on an errand for her father, to give Kian this or that, and Mike had been instantly smitten. It wasn’t long until Savannah was always around, either before or after hours and all too often, during. She was a distraction to everyone and Kian hated that most of all. He also hated that she was only with Mike because it meant one more chance to see him.

  Oh to be twenty again. Wait, who the hell would want that? There was only one night of his life he’d want to go back to, solely to erase it. To keep it from ever happening. It was a damn pity that the past never could be changed. A pity that fucked with his entire life.

  “Out having a smoke.” Savannah glanced at the guy in the chair and offered a dazzling smile. She thrust out her pink, too tight, cut too low, cropped too high, top in an effort to parade her ample breasts. They were all natural, as was the rest of her curvy figure. Her jeans matched her shirt in the fact that they were too sizes too small, painted on and probably uncomfortable as hell. Her heels were at least six inches tall, bringing her up to model like heights.

  “Okay.” Kian turned back to his client, finishing up the line he’d started.

  “I just wanted to say hi.”

  I’m sure.

  “Hello,” Kian ground out. “How’s your father?”

  “Good. You know daddy, always up to something.”

  Yes. Always. Savannah didn’t know the half of what her father did. The club that he was joint owner of with Kian was perfectly legal. The shit that went on there often was not. Unfortunately it was a product of owning a business that made a whole bunch of cash most nights of the week. The only night the place wasn’t open for debauchery was Wednesday.

  “Great. You and Mike got plans tonight?” Kian tried, whenever he could, to dissuade Savannah’s crush. He’d let her down a million times without actually saying the words. He hated that his partner’s daughter had been in love with him since the minute she laid eyes on him.

  He couldn’t quite regret meeting Jordan Fiacco in the bar that night. The guy was all full of hopes and dreams. He had cash he wanted to invest. They’d cooked up the plan for the club over a few whiskeys. He’d been hammered by the time the cab dropped him back at his place. The club was an instant hit in that underground, raunchy, warehouse kind of way people craved. It had lots of dark corners to hide all manner of deeds. It was so wildly successful, it produced the cash that Kian needed to open up his real objective: his shop.

  He couldn’t afford to make the wrong move. Considering Savannah hung on his every word while she was supposed to be Mike’s girlfriend made it hard not to make the wrong move.

  “Nope.” The cloying scent of Savannah’s perfume reached Kian’s nose and he tried not to breathe. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Ask him to take you out to dinner. There’s a nice place that opened up. I’m sure he could get in.”

  “Oh?” Savannah’s head was always turned by the prospect of money being spent to spoil her. “I’ll go ask.” She let out a little, high pitched giggle of delight and thankfully disappeared.

  “One second.” Kian set down his machine yet again. He got up, closed the door and locked it. When he resumed his seat, he found his client ogling him, slack jawed. “What?” Kian asked irritably before he disposed of his gloves and put on a fresh set.

  “What did you ever do to attract the attention of a woman like that?”

  Kian rolled his eyes. “First of all, I never wanted to attract it. I’m fifteen years older than she is. Secondly, I made her father my business partner. Third, she’s dating my best friend.”

  “Oh.”

  Yah. Oh. That one word pretty much summed it all up. The guy considered that for a moment before he winced.

  “You know, I think we should just continue this another day. I’ll book a second time on my way out.”

  Kian ground his teeth together so hard it sent pain spiking through his jaw. “Just wait. We have an hour of outlining to do and then I’ll let you go. You just have to make it through that. It’s going to be damn difficult to resume where I left off otherwise.”

  If he wasn’t mistaken, his client seemed close to tears. “Alright,” the guy finally agreed.

  �
��Don’t worry,” Kian said soothingly, an ironic twist to his words. “We’ll have numbing cream next time you come.”

  Chapter 3

  A Specter from the Past

  Katelyn

  “So, pink then?”

  Katelyn had years of dealing with clients who had no imagination. She wasn’t surprised that Jill, a thirty year old mother to be, insisted on making her nursery pink.

  “We can do the walls pink,” Katelyn agreed, turning slowly. She recognized the determined look in Jill’s light green eyes and knew it was a battle she wasn’t going to win. “What do you think about doing something a little non-traditional and pairing it with a gray and white area rug? I think it would really tie your crib together with the room since it’s white and it’s a good neutral color. We could set up the shelving over there,” she pointed to the far wall. “The rocker could go there in that corner by the window and we could put up some unique art on the wall by the crib. I know of some great, cute lighting we could replace the fixture with or I could find some pretty sweet lamps.”

  “And the closet?” Jill’s eyes glowed with eagerness. She stepped closer to Katelyn, as though standing near could transfer Katelyn’s vision into her head by osmosis.

  “The closet we could paint white and the window trim as well. I was thinking about installing a whole storage system in there so that you would have space for clothing and diapers and everything else that you need.”

  Jill’s smile was so wide and bright it nearly lit up the room. She was tall, taller than Katelyn by a few inches which put her near six feet. She was slim with honey colored hair, a different blonde than Katelyn’s completely. Her eyes were her best feature though. The green was light, so light it was almost otherworldly.

  One hand moved to the slight bump of her stomach. To look at Jill, it was hard to believe she was already eight months pregnant. She hardly looked it, but it was probably her height that did it.

  “Great. I like all your ideas. Everything you’ve said sounds wonderful. Are you sure that you can have it all done in a month?”

  “I can have it done in a week.” Katelyn grinned at Jill’s surprised look. “Believe me, I know that babies take their own time about coming. Just because you have four weeks left doesn’t mean it will actually be four weeks. I want you to have the room done and the peace of mind that you need.”

  “Thank you. You’re so great. Of all the designers I talked to, I knew right away it was you that I wanted to meet with and now that you’re here, I can’t wait to do this project.”

  “If you want to follow me into your kitchen we can finalize the design. I’ll do up a few sketches and jot down the ideas and get you to sign off on them and we can discuss budget and then you’re good to go. You can pick out cribs and bedding and art until your heart is content.”

  “Hmmm. Budget…” Jill trailed off as they walked down the hall. “I was thinking fifteen thousand. Do you think that would cover it?”

  Katelyn did her best to hide her shock. She basically charged an initial consultation fee and then charged by the hour for her work. Her rates were cheaper that most designers, but she wasn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination. It was shocking how much money people had to just throw around. If she had fifteen grand, she’d invest in something and it sure as hell wouldn’t be a nursery.

  At the rate I’m going I’ll never even have kids. The thought was a depressing one. Katelyn swallowed hard and followed Jill downstairs into her massive kitchen. The house was a new construction and the nursery room was at least five hundred square feet though she had yet to measure it. She tried to tell herself there was still time. Everyone said forty was the new twenty and she was thirteen years away from that.

  Katelyn finalized the designs and plans with Jill over the next few hours. By the time she left, battled traffic and picked up a few groceries, it was well past seven. She was starving and couldn’t wait to get into the condo, feed Missy and get her own dinner. She’d picked up a bag of salad and figured that was as good as anything. Maybe she’d split the can of tuna with Missy.

  It was well past Missy’s dinnertime and the Siamese let her know. She meowed loudly and incessantly until her dinner plate was set down in front of her.

  “You still have a dish full of crunchies you could have eaten,” Katelyn scolded, staring hard at the overflowing bowl of hard foot Missy always refused to eat.

  Missy was too busy chowing down tuna to give Katelyn a response let alone a second glance. She rolled her eyes.

  She unpacked her groceries, put the food in the fridge and pantry and filled up a bowl out of the bag of salad. She was just adding dressing when her phone went off in her purse.

  Because she was a workaholic and pretty much always had been, but also because she didn’t exactly keep regular hours, she fished her phone out and stared at the text across the screen.

  Her stomach churned when she recognized the number. The text was even more sinister.

  GUESS WHAT SWEETHEART? I’M IN MIAMI. WE NEED TO TALK.

  Is it never going to end? Will I ever be free from him?

  She pretty much already had an answer to that. John Robertson would always be her lifelong regret. The man that turned her head when she was too young and inexperienced to know better. He’d been in London on business. Some jewelry show. The guy actually had his own jewelry store. He’d been there looking at stones and gold and whatever else he did. She’d bumped into him on a café on her way home from work. He’d thought it was charming that she’d come from nothing and studied hard, worked even harder. He’d been enchanted that at seventeen she’d made her own way in the world, by nineteen she had a Certificate in Interior Design and that by twenty-three she was already making a name for herself. He’d been utterly charming, the sweetest man in the world. He was interesting too, foreign, exotic. Most of all, he was handsome.

  She’d been astounded that of all the women in the world, he wanted to take her out. They’d gone to a club, had a few drinks and danced. She’d slept with him that night. From that night on, she was lost. She’d followed him over to Chicago a few months later where they were married.

  It didn’t take long for her to figure out that the charming man she’d met in that café wasn’t the one she married. No, John had a much deeper darkness hidden away inside of himself. A darkness that wasn’t visible from the outside looking in. It was only once he had her, trapped, his ring on her finger, dependent on him for everything until she could work, until she got her Green Card, that his real character came out.

  “Abusive mother fucker,” Katelyn swore under her breath. Her hand shook so badly she had to set the phone down. Shivers started at the back of her neck and traced their way down her spine, hard and bracing. A cold sweat broke out over her skin, chilling her in the air conditioned condo. It stuck her sheer red blouse and black lace camisole to her damp skin.

  Her knuckles whitened on her phone and she relaxed her grip. Slowly, so very slowly, she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath. Her eyes closed. Behind them, cutting through the darkness, was John’s handsome face. He was blonde haired and blue eyed. The kind of All American dream boat, football team captain, that women swooned for. He seemed like the perfect husband. If only people knew about the manipulation, the insults, the horrible things he whispered in her ear, the mental abuse that was far worse than the bruises she got so good at covering over with makeup.

  He’d cut her down, face twisted, sneering, until she had almost nothing left of herself at all. She’d been smart enough to get out when she could. She’d packed her bags and left. For everything that he was, John didn’t want to lose his livelihood. They had no prenup and he was the one with all the money. He signed the divorce papers in exchange for a zero dollar settlement and her silence about what had happened. His reputation was just like his jewelry, gold, and he couldn’t risk her tarnishing it.

  Katelyn opened her eyes. She knew it would only be a matter of time before John found her. Before he showed up o
n her doorstep, begging her to take him back. This wasn’t the first text she’d received.

  She finally texted back, just to test him. I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY.

  Not even half a minute later, her phone dinged. She stared at the screen, stomach sinking. Yes, she knew John well. Far too well.

  I’M NOT LEAVING UNTIL WE TALK. I CAN GET YOUR ADDRESS THE HARD WAY OR YOU CAN GET IT OVER WITH AND SEND IT TO ME.

  Katelyn thought briefly about driving right down to the police station and filing a restraining order. She only hesitated because she didn’t want to set John off. Maybe if she just agreed to meet with him and get it over and done with, he’d leave. She could set up her phone and tell him she was filming it all, so that he wouldn’t do anything. She could leave the front door open or meet him on the sidewalk. Anything to keep herself safe.

  John was nothing if not resourceful. Her address was public knowledge. Chances were he already knew it though he asked her for it. All he’d have to do was type her name into a search and her business would come up. She had no office so she’d had to register her condo address.

  A fresh set of tremors started up. Her hands shook so hard that she nearly dropped her phone. Missy meowed softly, sensing the strain in the kitchen.

  Katelyn smiled and the act of it served to calm her. “It’s okay, honey. I won’t let anything happen to us. I’ll get it done and it will be over with. I’ll warn him that I’ll put a restraining order in place. He never got his parting shot. He just has to let me hear it. This is probably all this is. One more hour and hopefully he’ll be out of our lives forever.”

  Finally she texted her address. She had a sinking feeling as soon as she did it, that it wouldn’t be over at all. John wasn’t the kind of person who liked losing. She’d left him and he’d never been able to input his cherished last word. She knew, all year, that this was coming. This final meeting. She just wanted to get it over with so he couldn’t hold it over her head any longer.